Recession hits American small towns

During times of an economic crisis, big cities have it hard. However, for some smaller towns the situation looks bleaker. The people of Holyoke, Massachusetts, are struggling not to lose their last hope.

In the good old days Holyoke used to be one of the most beautiful and successful cities in the United States.

Now Holyoke has turned into one of the poorest cities in Massachusetts with half the children living below the poverty line.

Ted Prajzner has lived in Holyoke his whole life, and has been working in a fast food joint for years.

The food here is still cheap, but lately many of the regular customers simply can’t afford to eat here as often as they used to.

“There’re no jobs here right now,” he said. “You look at the paper on a Sunday, and there used to be three pages of classifieds with jobs. And you are lucky if you have half a page right now.”

In the last few years, there have been some attempts to bring jobs back into town, but then the US economy took a serious turn for the worse. Now, more and more people have nothing left but to rely on welfare.